GILBERT
557
OILDAS
were situated in England, except two which were in
Westmeath, Ireland. Notwithstaniling the liberal
charters granted by Henry II and his successors, the
order had fallen into great poverty liy the end of the
fifteenth century. Henry VI exempted all its houses
from payments of every kind — an exemption which
could not and did not bind his successors. Heavy
sums had occasionall)- to be paid to the Roman Curia,
and expenses were incurred in suits against the real or
pretended encroachments of the bishops. By the
time of the Dissolution there were twenty-six houses.
They fared no better than the other monasteries, and
no resistance whatever was made by the last Master of
Sempringham, Robert Holgate, Bishop of Llandaff. a
great favourite at court, who was promoted in 1545
to the Archbishopric of York. The Gilbertines are
described as surrendering "of their own free will",
each of the nuns and canons receiving "a reasonable
yearly pension". Only four of their houses were
ranked among the greater monasteries as having an
income above £200 a 3-ear, and as the order appears to
have preserved to the end the plainness and simplicity
in church plate and vestments enjoined by St. Gilbert,
the Crown did not reap a rich harvest by its suppres-
sion.
Fur bibliography see the article on Gilbert, Saint; also Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (London. 1899); P. L.. C'XCV; Helyot. Hisloire des ordres religieux, II (Paris, 1792); Floyd, An Extinct Reliffious Order and Its Founder in The Catholic World, LXII (New York, 1S96).
R. Urban Butler.
Gilbert Islands, Vicariate Apostouc of, com- prises the group of that name, besides the islands of Ellice and Panapa. The most important members of the group, which consists of sixteen low atolls, are Tapiteuca, Arorai, Apemama, Maiana, Marakei, and Nonouti, which cluster near the Equator, and consti- tute the most easterly link in the chain of islands which make up Micronesia. The natives are of Malay in type, and until the advent of the white man were given over to savagery and, in some instances, cannibalism. Nominally under the protection of Great Britain, the islands are practically self-governed, and a sort of re- publicanism prevails. The principal industry is the preparation and exportation of copra, which is verj' plentiful, although there is some Uttle traffic in shark fins.
Upon the partition of the Vicariate of Micronesia, the Gilbert Islands were erected into an independent vicariate by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, dated 17 July, 1897, and the present vicar Apostolic, Mgr. Joseph Leray, titular Bishop of Remesiana, was placed at its head, and, with several missionary priests from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart, he entered upon the evangelization of the islands. The population of the vicariate is estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000, of whom 14,000 are Catholics. There are 12 churches and 56 chapels imder the care of 19 priests, 96 parochial schools, with an attendance of 1700 boys and 1500 girls, 2 schools for catechists with a combined attendance of 50, 12 orphanages which shelter 400 orphans, 11 houses of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart, with 35 religious, and 8 houses of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart with 20 mms.
Miss.Cath. (Rome, 1907); Herdek, Konversalions Lex.; Ann. Eccl. (1909); Statesman's Year Book (1909); Spitz, Catholic Progress in the Gilbert Islands in The Tablet (London, April, 1904). Stanley J. Quinn.
Gilbert of Sempringham, Saint, founder of the Order of Gilbertines, b. at Sempringham, on the border of the Lincolnshire fens, between Bourn and Hecking- ton. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but it lies between 1083 and 1089 ; d. at Sempringham, 1 189. His father, Jocelin, was a wealthy Norman knight holding lands in Lincolnshire; his mother, name im- known, was an Englishwoman of humble rank. Being
ill-favoured and deformed, he was not destined for a
military or knightly career, but was sent to France to
study. After spending .some time abroad, where he
became a teacher, he returned as a young man to his
Lincolnshire home, and was presented to the livings of
.Sempringham and Tirington, which were churches in
his father's gift. Shortly afterwards he betook him-
self to the court of Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln,
where he became a clerk in the episcopal household.
Robert was succeeded in 1123 by Alexander, who re-
tained Gilbert in his service, ordaining him deacon and
priest much against his will. The revenues of Sem-
pringham had to suffice for his maintenance in the
court of the bishop; those of Tirington he devoted to
the poor. OtTered the archdeaconry of Lincoln, he
refused, saymg that he knew no surer way to perdition.
In 1131 he returned to Sempringham and, his father
being dead, became lord of the manor and lands. It
was in this year that he founded the Gilbertine Order,
of which he was the first " Master", and constructed at
Sempringham, with the help of Alexander, a dwelling
and cloister for his nuns, at the north of the church of
St. Andrew.
His life henceforth became one of extraordinary austerity, its strictness not diminishing as he grew older, though the activity and fatigue caused by the government of the order were considerable. In 1147 he travelled to Citeaux, in Burgundy, where he met Eugene III, St. Bernard, and St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh. The pope expressed regret at not having known of him some years previously when choosing a successor to the deposed Archbishop of York. In 1 165 he was summoned before Henrj- II's justices at West- minster and was charged with having sent help to the exiled St. Thomas a Becket. To clear himself he was invited to take an oath that he had not done so. He refused, for, though as a matter of fact he had not sent help, an oath to that effect might make him appear an enemy to the archbishop. He was prepared for a sen- tence of exile, when letters came from the king in Nor- mandy, ordering the judges to await his return. In 1170, when Ciilbert was already a verj' old man, some of his lay-brothers revolted and spread serious calum- nies against him. After some years of fierce contro- versy on the subject, in which Henrv II took his part, Alexander III freed him from suspicion, and confirmed the privileges granted to the order. Advancing age induced Gilbert to give up the government of his order. He appointed as his successor Roger, prior of Malton. Very infirm and almost blind, he now made his religious profession, for though he had founded an order and ruled it for many years he had never become a religious in the strict sense. Twelve years after his death, at the earnest recpiest of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, he was canonized by Innocent III, and his relics were solemnly translated to an honourable place in the church at Sempringham, his shrine be- coming a centre of pilgrimage. Besides the compila- tion of his rule, he has left a little treatise entitled " De constructione monasteriorum". His feast is kept in the Roman calendar on 11 Februarj'.
Acta SS., 4 Feb.; Archer in Did. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Dal- GAiRN-s, Life of St. Gilbert in New\mn, / ivrs i,f English Saints (London, 1844); Dugdale, 1/ .' \ Nr,liranum ^l.ondon,
1846), V, 2; Graham, St. (, ,,:,ngham and the Gil-
bertines (London, 1901); Z- t.,i ,,. ^ rrl in Herzog and Hauck, Healencykloptidie (Lun>.,i-. l^'j'j,, \'I, 664-5. See also bibliography under Gilbertines.
R. Urban Butler.
Gildas, Saint, surnamed the Wise; b. about 516;
d. at Houat, Brittany, 570. Sometimes he is called
"Badonicus", because, as he tells us, his birth took
place the year the Britons gained a famous victory
over the Saxons at Mount Batlon, near Bath, Somer-
setshire (493 or 516). Two biographies of Gildas ex-
ist — one written by an imknown Breton monk of the
Abbey of Rhuys in the eleventh century, the other by
